In 1947 Hungary, Dorottya is expelled from school for possessing Communist literature and joins a party cell to remain near her lover, only to fall for and marry the group’s leader. After the Communist takeover, her husband vanishes in a political purge, leaving her to suspect her former lover played a role in his disappearance. Now a disillusioned factory cleaner, she is forced to confront her past and face a bleak future alone under the rising Stalinist regime.

2002 film directed by István Bujtor

In 1866, the Szendrey family gathers for the name-day of Júlia’s sister, Mária, but the event dissolves into bitter grievances and the physical decline of the household. As the dying widow of the poet Sándor Petőfi, Júlia struggles with a failed second marriage while Mária grapples with jealousy over her own husband’s love for Júlia. The family’s fragile unity finally shatters under the suffocating weight of Sándor’s heroic legacy and the pervasive shadow of illnesses.

Hungarian director Janos Szasz based this film on a famous 1837 German play, changing the alienated title character from a soldier to a railroad worker. Woyzeck (Lajos Kovacs) is a slovenly flag man in a Budapest railroad yard. At work he is harassed by his boss, an army captain who makes him run errands, shave him, and sweep the tracks constantly. At home he is cuckolded by his wife Marie (Diana Vacaru), who finds a policeman more exciting than her dull husband. Woyzeck's only friends are a homeless boy, a doctor who uses him for bizarre experiments, and a tattered Bible. As his humiliation increases, Woyzeck decides that it's time to make some changes in his life.

1999 film directed by Peter Kassovitz

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.